Women Tell Personal Stories Of Abortion

WASHINGTON — Patricia Ireland, then a college senior, had an illegal abortion performed 19 years ago by an unlicensed doctor whom a friend found at an all-night poker game in Tennessee.

``My hands are trembling as I talk to you,`` said Ireland, an attorney in a large law firm. ``It just drives me crazy to hear people say that (deciding to have an abortion) is done on a whim.``

Judy Primak, then a 40-year-old with one daughter in college and another about to enter, was preparing 15 years ago to fly to Puerto Rico for an abortion.

Primak worked at the office of a gynecologist and obstetrician. She was finally able to find three doctors who were willing to swear that she needed an abortion for ``therapeutic`` reasons at a hospital in the United States.

``You hear about guilt, but my only feelings were relief and gratitude,`` said Primak, a travel executive and grandmother. ``That decision meant we could put both our daughters through college without any government assistance.``

The two Miami women are among the first of 100,000 volunteers being recruited this spring by pro-choice groups to write open letters on their decisions to terminate their pregnancies.

The letters are to be read in public in 35 states during May by their authors or by members of National Abortion Rights Action League, American Civil Liberties Union, Catholics for a Free Choice, National Abortion Federation, National Organization for Women, National Women`s Political Caucus, Planned Parenthood and Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights.

``By May 24, we intend to gather 100,000 stories nationwide of women who have faced one of the hardest decisions a woman can make, 100,000 reminders to the American public of the potential victims of a return to illegal abortion, 100,000 powerful testimonials in terms more emotional than we`ve ever heard from our opponents,`` said Judith Clegg, president of Washington state`s National Abortion Rights Action League.

The drive is called ``Silent No More.`` It is intended to counter in equally emotional terms a widely distributed pro-life film, The Silent Scream. In the 28-minute film, Dr. Bernard Nathanson, a former abortionist, illustrates his arguments against abortion by using sonogram images of a moving fetus within a woman`s womb during an abortion.

``In the efforts by some in the medical community to humanize the fetus, the woman is being dehumanized,`` said Nanette Falkenberg, national executive director of National Abortion Rights Action League. ``In January, when I wanted to talk about who the woman was in the sonogram -- how did she make the decision, and why? -- there was a sense on the part of the press that that was old news.``

She said the film, a heavily attended Right to Life March on Washington, President Reagan`s two public statements on the issue and recent incidents of violence and harassment at abortion clinics have transformed ``a political and legislative disagreement into a battle for hearts and minds.``

So, for the first time since the 1973 Supreme Court decision in Roe vs. Wade that put limits on anti-abortion laws, pro-choice groups are asking women to speak out about their own abortions.

``We`re trying to get away from the numbers and get people to tell their individual stories, so that the public realizes these are not nameless, faceless people who want the right to make that choice,`` she said.

About 1.5 million abortions are performed in the United States each year. But in a country where many people find it embarrassing to ask a druggist for contraceptives if there is another customer around, few find it easy to speak in public about their own abortions.

``Doing this is particularly ironic, when I obviously believe it`s a very private decision for a woman to make in consultation with her doctor,`` said Ireland. ``I have not to this day discussed it with my mother, although I guess she`s going to hear about it soon.``

Primak said: ``My family knew about it, my friends knew about it, but I`m just not the kind of person who`s a public speaker.``

As a college senior in 1966, Ireland said, ``I did get pregnant at a point when I couldn`t support myself, much less a child.``

Because ``my future and my family and my education were very important to me and I wasn`t at all ready to take nine months out of my life and have a baby and put it out for an adoption,`` she decided to have an abortion.

``The way you did it then was you got in touch with the local underworld,`` she said. ``An older student who was a gambler asked around and found out about a man who was a foreign doctor, not licensed in this country.``

She said, ``We found him in the back room of a club where they had a permanent poker game going on. He came up to my apartment and did it without any facilities for sterilizing instruments, without a nurse or any backup for a medical emergency.``